8/26/09

Boycotts, Spies and Cheeky Bloggers

The recent Whole Foods and Glenn Beck schemes have brought an old tactic to the fore once again. I have always wondered just how effective politically inspired boycotts are.
My observation would be that they are more satisfying to think about than to actually participate in.
Of course, we have all engaged in them in our personal life, even if subconsciously. But it's hard to stay the course, no matter how strongly you feel about things.

So far, I have been successful in my boycott against the purchase of Ben and Jerry's. However, that is owing entirely to the fact that I buy ice cream by the cone-ful and I have never seen it offered in that quantity in any of the places I frequent in search of the last unregulated narcotic.
All my fantasies of driving anyone who disagrees with me out of business would melt more quickly than the product itself if I was actually confronted with the choice of, Ben or none at all. Such is the nature of my addiction.

The same can be said of all the saloons I regularly boycott that serve beer priced at $6.75 for twelve ounces, a price which never gave me pause while attending the White Sox game recently. Beer at the ball park is the same addiction as chocolate chip cookie dough at the Plush Horse ice cream parlor.

But the topic under consideration here is the formalized, somewhat organized variety, not the "I'll never buy anything at Walmart" type practiced by retired GM assembly line workers. (A practice only adhered to in broad daylight)
All the studies I have seen show that boycotts don't work. They don't work with Cuban cigars and it won't work with the Glenn Beck program. Anyone who has even a faint line on the brainwave graph can figure out that the people who would participate in such a boycott don't actually watch the Glenn Beck program. As for the advertisers on the Fox network, they certainly have plenty of activity on their charts.

Then why do I have the vague feeling that in my case, it is working? It's only because, ever since I began writing on this blog I haven't garnered a single new client for my non-profit, nano start up business. Just compare that to the throngs that stormed the turnstiles prior to my somewhat controversial remarks being widely circulated on the net. (OK, never mind on those last two things)

Aside from the secret boycott of my services, another concern is the disappearance of the pretend trash pickers in the beat up white pickups who used to suspiciously circle my house. (They are actually spies for the vast left wing conspirators commissioned by the White House to turn in the names of dangerous bloggers like myself)

I say used to circle my house because I haven't seen them lately. But with my Jr. detective badge secured just above my beer shelf, I have subsequently made the connection between their absence and the proliferation of the Prius and other guilt-mobiles doing the same thing.
It's obvious that the spies have all participated in the patriotic stimulus plan for America by turning in their old gas guzzling spy-mobiles for eco-friendly sneak and peek cars. All in the interest of replacing the CIA water sport fanatics with a new legion of unpaid snitches reporting on their neighbors over the Internet.

So, boycotts don't work, except when used to intimidate freedom blabbermouths on tiny blogs who have trouble writing with a tongue stuck in their cheek.